


A story about a pear

by JMA



Series: When your Mountain has worn down to sand, I will rebuild you from clay. [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Food, Food Kink, I like pears, Long winded storytelling, M/M, Missing Scene, Sensuality, Unrequited Love, What lead to the holy water fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 23:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMA/pseuds/JMA
Summary: Aziraphale tells Oscar Wilde the real reason he argued with Crowley."The juice... It was only one bite and the juice ran. He.. he grabbed my hand. The pear."I've linked this to 'When your mountain has crumbled to dust" series but can be read as a one-shot.





	A story about a pear

"I think you might be something of a fraud," Oscar announced. The other man froze in the midst of pouring a glass of wine. The light in his curled hair made it look more golden than pale.

Offense? No, the man was afraid. Interesting.

He had been introduced as both A. Ziraphale and A Fell. This wasn't entirely unusual as the first meeting had been in a respectable literary setting, but the second being a discreet Gentleman's Club where many patrons declined to give their real name. When he met Mr Fell the bookseller the man hadn't made much of an impression on Oscar, especially with other more glittering personalities present, it was at Portland Place where Oscar met Mr Ziraphale and was utterly entranced with the almost euphoric joy with which he practiced the gavotte, and intrigued by his lack of interest in anything else.

Oscar called him Aziraphale Fell, said in full, because the nonsensical words pleased him, and his companion hadn't seen to correct him. 

This wasn't the first time he'd seduced someone from either the club or his literary circles, but it was shaping up to a be his most spectacular failure to date. Aziraphale Fell seemed to enjoy his company and conversation, and be thoroughly inverted himself, yet shy of any physical affection. 

Then there was the other thing. Aziraphale Fell reminded him very much of a naturalist at the zoo - interested in the goings on around him but not really part of it.

"No," Oscar waved it off before Aziraphale Fell could object, "that was offensive and badly worded and I apologise. There is something about you though, something that isn't quite as it seems." 

Aziraphale Fell relaxed. Oscar did not.

He handed Oscar his glass and took the seat opposite. The wine was good, and the company may prove to be more interesting than he'd hoped after all.

"I'm afraid I have to disappoint you, Mr Wilde, as I am exactly as I seem. No more."

Possible, but unlikely. Oscar could practically smell a good story, a wild tale, and had become very good at ferreting them out. "I will have your story, Aziraphale Fell. Not you're life story, how dull. Everyone's life story is dull in its minutiae, but give me a story anyway. A love story! "

That startled a bark of laughter from the blonde man. "Then I certainly will disappoint you."

Perhaps the evening would be dull after all. Yet Oscar found himself persistent. "You've never been in love? Never had your heart broken?" Aziraphale Fell shook his head. " What if I asked you his name? What would be the first name to spring to mind? "

"Crowley"

Ah, there is was. It wasn't so much the name as the the other man's obvious desire to snatch the name back out of the air and cram it back into his mouth. Oscar smiled. His companion sighed.

"I'm not much of a storyteller. I haven't the imagination I'm afraid. And it's not a romance." He gave him one last look of despair, as though Oscar might take pity on him. "We're not... lovers. We're not even friends.

He brought me chocolates when I opened the shop, and has helped me out of a pickle more than once. I've done the same for him, mind."

"Where is he now? " Oscar prompted.

"Sleeping, probably, " the reluctant storyteller mumbled. Then, to Oscar, "We had a falling out. He asked me for something that would have hurt him quite, quite badly and we quarrelled."

This promised at least to be passing interesting. Oscar's companion took a shaky breath and seemed to look inward as though assessing himself for the truth. "I think, perhaps, it was also a quarrel about a.. a pear."

Oscar leaned forward in his chair. A man who is not a friend, an argument and a pear were all fine ingredients for an interesting tale, but finer still was the look of regret and something yet unnamed that settled across his companion's face.

"It's nothing," he said again, more to himself than to Oscar, "just a pear.

He likes to watch me eat, you see. I'm something of a hedonist about food, although I do try to keep this side of gluttony. And he likes to bring me things to try. Chocolate, exotic fruit. Even a pineapple once!" 

"You ate a pineapple?" Oscar asked. This Mr Crowley was obviously a wealthy man.

"Yes, replied Aziraphale, "and it was terrible."

Oscar laughed. "Probably why the Snake of Eden chose an apple."

Aziraphale Fell choked on his wine. Oscar moved to help him but was waved off. "Sorry," Fell said, "went down badly." 

"You were telling me about the pear."

"The pear..yes. Too ripe, really. I had brought the cheese and wine and he brought pears. I like... it doesn't matter. There was cheese as well.

We were in this inn in Mayfair that I have seriously considered burning to the ground."

He smiled wryly to show Oscar that he was joking, but there was too much pain in that smile to be convincing. 

"You're not friends, but he brings you food in yet-to-be-burnt inns?"

His companion pursed his lips together as he thought, then looked Oscar in the eye. It had the air of a man who had committed to a lie.

"It is dangerous for some people to be together. For.. people like us. They used to hang inverts, and now it's.. hard labour? I know you understand, so you will understand that for him it is much, much worse. His... family.. will kill him. And it won't just be murder, but torture him all the ways mankind has shown them." 

"The law is not on our side, but surely it would protect him from that?"

"English law would not apply. They would do as they please and take every pleasure in hurting him."

Oscar nodded. He'd had a friend once tell him of how men such as themselves were dealt with in other cultures. He could very well accept the danger Mr Fell's friend was in. And yet..

"And yet we'd carve out these little times for ourselves. An inn, or a stroll in St James' park. We'd share a meal or some wine... but we must be very, very careful."

This Oscar understood. He had felt it his whole life, this need to gouge out spaces where he could be himself. The world was full of carefully concealed niches for people like them.

"It's not like the Club, Oscar, nothing as..." The reluctant storyteller struggled for words." We don't... we don't touch each other. Not like lovers. Just incidentally. Glancing blows."

He closed his eyes and looked such a picture of misery that Oscar, unthinking, reached out to reassure him. Aziraphale flinched. Glancing blows indeed. 

Oscar smiled an apology. Aziraphale gave him a small smile in return, then stood to open another bottle of wine. Oscar cast for something to say.

"What does he look like?" he asked.

The other man poured for them and smiled, obviously more comfortable with this than the subject of touch. 

"As thin as a snake. Always stylish, although he does prefer dark clothing. And he has red hair."

This delighted Oscar as much as it surprised him. He'd been picturing a dashing exotic fellow, with dark hair and eyes, but Aziraphale Fell's gentleman was a ginger!

"A ginger!" He exclaimed, unable to help himself.

"Not ginger, not that common sort of orange ginger you see around. Darker, like copper but redder still. It was short the last I saw him, but when we met he wore it long, with a curl."

Oscar wondered if Aziraphale Fell could hear the fondness in his own voice. 

"And his eyes. They're really quite beautiful for all of their peculiarity."

"Peculiarity?"

His companion looked as though he had been caught out. 

"He, uh, has trouble with the light so he usually wears dark glasses. You almost never see him without them, even indoors." The storyteller settled back into memory. "Only that night we'd drunk enough that he took them off. We'd our coats off and sleeves rolled and...and.. that blasted pear!"

He looked away, Oscar made a study of his face. Embarrassment, regret. Longing. 

"It was too ripe." Aziraphale Fell licked his bottom lip unconsciously. Oscar could picture him holding a pear just on the cusp of turning. 

"The juice... It was only one bite and the juice ran. He.. he grabbed my hand. The pear."

This too Oscar could picture. Two hands holding each other, and in both a fruit full to bursting. He pictured the man he had never met bringing the fruit, and both their hands, to his mouth to take a bite, placing his lips where Aziraphale's had been. 

It was erotic, bordering on obscene.

Oscar could practically taste it.

"I thought he was going to bite the pear." Aziraphale said, "I thought he was going to bite the pear. But he turned my wrist and licked the juice."

Aziraphale swallowed dryly. Oscar let out a long and shaking breath he didn't know he was holding. 

Oh.

After a while Aziraphale took a sip of his wine and looked at Oscar with shining eyes. 

"I met him a few days later at St James' park. We fought. I would not, I will not aid him in suicide!" Aziraphale waved his hand at Oscar's look of alarm. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to sound like he intends to harm himself. It's just... I can't explain it any better than this; he asked me for something he can use against his family, but it has every chance of getting out of hand and doing irreparable damage to himself. Worse, even, than anything they could do and that is considerable enough."

"Will you see him again?"

"The moth always returns to the flame." Fell smiled sadly. "I don't always remember which of us is which. It can't end well.

It isn't love, Oscar, not the way you mean it. It's self-destruction that gets lonely."

And there is was, the look that made Oscar question him in the first place. Here was a man who had shut the gate on love. He has weighed the risks and decided against every human sense to harden his heart. 

Oscar would send him stories, novels and notes, all saying the same thing. 

Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.

It would be many, many years until Aziraphale would read them again and truly understand.

**Author's Note:**

> This can be read on it's own, but can also be considered part of the same series as Apple and Rebuild you from clay. I've had to go back and slightly alter a line in Clay to make it work :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] A story about a pear by JMA](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025976) by [CompassRose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CompassRose/pseuds/CompassRose)




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